


Almost Red

by rattyjol



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Brief Gore, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 17:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4272717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rattyjol/pseuds/rattyjol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been years since Granny died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Red

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by evil_little_dog on comment_fic LJ: [Any Wolf fairy tale, the Wolf, ...To be somebody else / complete transformation / From the someone we are in the day.](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/629286.html?thread=86252070#t86252070)

Her hood isn't so red as the stories say. It's a sort of muddy brown, more like, a little faded, a little drab, nothing to write home about. In the clear afternoon light, when the sun hits it just right—sure, you could call it red. She's not so little anymore, and she wears it every day, but it never seems to get ragged round the edges. Still fits her—not like new, but comfortably, an old friend settled across her shoulders. She wears it so often that the villagers like to joke that it fits her like a second skin.

It's been years since Granny died, but still she goes off skipping into the woods, basket in hand, once a week like clockwork. _What a sweet girl,_ they say, watching the almost-red swishing off between the trees, _visiting the poor old lady's grave like that. Somebody must have raised her right._

Someone always says, before she goes, _Watch out for that wolf now!_ And she smiles, all teeth, and says, _I always do._

But the wolf died, you see, years ago now, just like Granny. Red cut her way out of its belly herself, with the very knife she carries in her basket now, and she stood over it in her cloak of almost-red and howled her victory to the sky.

So now she goes, every week like clockwork, basket and knife and hood together, and she never follows the path.

The stories are right: every forest needs its wolf.


End file.
